


Age of Anxiety

by galimau



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Gen, Mobile Unfriendly Embedded Images
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-06 02:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19053700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galimau/pseuds/galimau
Summary: Ten years later, the world looks back.Set in the future of Pongnosis' fic, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pongnosis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pongnosis/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10222295) by [pongnosis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pongnosis/pseuds/pongnosis). 



> Anyone on mobile should proceed to chapter two, where the article content is posted separately!

                                                      

                                        


	2. Article Content

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The written content from the first chapter, for anyone who is on mobile or doesn't like reading in column formatting.

_Published Anonymously at Author’s Request_

 

**A Mercenary State of Mind**

Rather than establishing an era of peace, the end of the Cold War gave birth to the modern mercenary state.

The process of demilitarization in the 1990s triggered a recession for the United States and its allies in Europe. After a decades-long arms race and proxy conflicts around the globe, the military market had never been better. And peace, no matter how highly anticipated, was an unexpected blow to the economic growth enjoyed in the 80s. As tensions deescalated, weapons manufacturers projected long-term losses for the first time in half a century.

As private industries began to source new markets and development teams went to work on products more suitable for civilian use, governments around the globe began the long work of restructuring their security services. Skills that had once been in high-demand became black marks in an agent’s record.

While the world prepared for a new era of cooperation and transparency, keeping personnel on staff who specialized in extrajudicial executions, and targeted espionage was an indication that these governments were unwilling to turn over a new leaf as the 21st century began. In a fit of optimism about the future of our world, national security forces agreed to sweep the past under the rug - and along with it, the people they employed.

With the declining role for conventional intelligence and counterintelligence work, many of these highly trained individuals found themselves with limited prospects for the future.

 Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to return to civilian life many former agents, scientists and soldiers looked to the private sector instead. Some of them, perhaps in pursuit of more money or freedom from oversight, turned to the criminal underworld. Unlike their former government employers, these individuals believed there was still money to be made in blackbook operations.

Unfortunately for all of us, these rogue agents suspected what we later found to be reality: in the midst of the "long peace", the business of war has never been better.

In the absence of total war, proxy conflicts have become the norm. Rather than traditional battlefields, conflicts of the modern age are are fought through intermediaries. Technological espionage, economic destabilization and terror attacks have become unremarkable parts of our political landscape, and we have all suffered because of it.

 

**The Crime Economy**

Government and military forces moving to the private sector is not modern phenomenon.

Private military companies, formed by former soldiers, sprang up in the wake of the second world war, founding a market for applied force without government restrictions. Many intelligence agencies contract work out to these companies, and their names are familiar even among the civilian world: WatchGaurd. Blackwater. Academi.

These companies worked legally, if covertly. Used largely to bolster troop numbers overseas or to circumvent international military regulations, PMCs operated in a grey area of government oversight. They also paved the way for the invention of the modern terror marketplace:

Corporatized crime.

Operating without legal permissions or accountability, these organizations demonstrate the worst-possible combination of the criminal and intelligence worlds. Rather than contracting with governments to patch over personnel issues or provide private security as PMCs do, these ‘private criminal companies’ operate firmly in the black market.

The most significant of these organizations is SCORPIA – standing for Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence and Assassination. Though the name seems laughably like something out of Fleming, the reality is far from humorous.

Since the resolution of the Cold War, SCORPIA has developed into a behemoth of the criminal world. Though tracking precise numbers for criminal activity is always difficult, SCORPIA’s assumed business model is one from the pages of any entrepreneurial self-help guide: diversification.

With members implicated in everything from crimes against humanity to run of the mill murder (if there is such a thing), SCORPIA has turned a profit in every corner of the black market.

Unlike traditional organized crime, SCORPIA neither operates in specific geographic areas nor specializes in the ‘big three’ – drugs, weapons or sex. In fact, SCORPIA doesn’t specialize at all. Operating more like a multinational business than the mob, SCORPIA puts profit over anything else, and has expanded their reach across the globe.

Despite this reputation for adaptability there is one area where SCORPIA claims more expertise than any competitor, and it is the boogeyman of the modern world: terrorism.

SCORPIA is responsible for an estimated tenth of the world’s terrorist activity. The most famous of their attacks is the Air Force One tragedy with Damien Cray. According to recently disclosed documents by the CIA, SCORPIA facilitated the launch of nuclear missiles across the globe, resulting in one of the great atrocities of human history. The ramifications of the fallout are still felt today, more than a decade later.

  

**The New Face of Terror**

Since its establishment in the late 80s, SCORPIA has been restructured several times. Initially run by an executive board of seven members, leadership of the terrorist organization later reduced to two members, Yassen Gregorovich and Dr Three (see page 51). Four years later, the command structure of the most influential criminal organization on the planet shifted again when Gregorovich assumed control.

After a period of uncertainty where public alert levels were increased to ‘Code Red’ for the first time in years, the situation was deemed stable by international authorities. The internal politics of the criminal organization would have been written off as unexceptional, except for the sudden disappearance of Gregorovich a few years later. His retreat from the organization came only five years after consolidating power. Without pause, his one-time protege stepped forward to claim a place within SCORPIA.

Alex Rider, 28 years old, has been the executive head of SCORPIA since he was 25. With an active criminal file since he was 14 years old – ‘wanted in connection with terrorist activities’ read INTERPOL’s database – he has an alarming amount of experience for his young age.

Over the past years, more information about his criminal record made its way out of government agencies and into the public eye, though much is still classified.

What we do know is worrying enough.

Alex Rider is the son of a dishonorably discharged special forces soldier, John Rider. Following the murder of a taxi driver, John Rider fled England. Warrants for his arrest at the time indicate an association with SCORPIA in its fledgling years.

Some time in Alex’s early infancy, John Rider and his wife Helen perished. Alex was raised by his paternal uncle, Ian Rider until his death in a car accident when Alex was 14. Reports from his teachers and classmates at the time indicate that following the death of his uncle, Rider became withdrawn and aggressive, consistently absent from school.

That year, under unclear circumstances, Alex Rider came into the care of Yassen Gregorovich, operating at that time as an assassin. He was 14. Over the next two years, the list of criminal activity associated with Rider’s name grew exponentially.

By 16, Rider was wanted in connection to several murders, for acts of terrorism and was implicated in the sale of biological weapons. At the age of 18, only just an adult in the eyes of his home country of England, Rider was being moved into the top circles of a criminal empire that spans the globe and generates tens of billions of dollars in bloodmoney profit a year.

That is all fact. The rest is speculation: how and why Gregorovich recruited Alex Rider is the subject of much debate, though nothing has been confirmed. Rumors of a coup within SCORPIA are more easily substantiated: soon after Rider joined the organization, the previous leaders died or vanished conspicuously. The one-time head of SCORPIA, Zeljan Kurst, was personally killed by Rider, who then claimed the million dollar bounty on Kurst’s head.

An ambitious, if morbid, beginning to a successful career.

In the three years since assuming total control over SCORPIA, Rider’s impact has been substantial.

Through ongoing efforts to increase SCORPIA’s presence outside of the criminal world, Rider has succeeded in doing something none of his predecessors accomplished: legitimizing his organization.

Still destabilized from the terror attacks and economic chaos a decade ago (caused in no small part by SCORPIA itself), governments have been forced to attend to the needs of domestic affairs rather than international crises. In this shifting balance of global power, SCORPIA gained a foothold in the political landscape.

Recent disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that governments around the world turned to organizations such as SCORPIA and its competitors for resources and services that would have been unthinkable in the pre-Cray world. Though the policy of most nations still asserts that “we do not negotiate with terrorists”, that claim is now demonstrably untrue.

Whether motivated by desperation or sheer convenience, world leaders not only negotiated with terrorists, but gave Alex Rider and SCORPIA a seat at the table.

No longer graded as an imminent global threat, SCORPIA has once again diversified its business model - and on the surface, some of these changes are even benign. To a portfolio traditionally consisting of assassination, corporate sabotage and terror strikes, SCORPIA has added humanitarian aid.

Bound to no country or code of conduct, SCORPIA has garnered a reputation for taking decisive action in times of crisis, for those willing to meet their price.

Operating more like an occupying force than traditional mercenaries, SCORPIA maintains personnel in high-risk areas and passes the cost of their ‘aid’ to the host nation, bartering their presence for the guarantee of political protection and future business relations. Just as SCORPIA itself is the criminal mirror of a PMC, their charitable operations function as an ominous mockery of peacekeeping troops.

The need for political protection is a pressing one for Rider. Because of the influence he enjoys as the head of SCORPIA, he occupies a permanent spot at the top of the terrorist watch list. He is wanted by INTERPOL, with further warrants for his arrest posted in eleven countries.

The United States currently offers a $10 million reward for information leading to the apprehension or arrest of Alex Rider. Additional rewards have been posted by Britain, Australia and France.

 

**Moving Forward**

 SCORPIA presents a problem that is unique to the modern world: criminal organizations fulfill roles that we have allowed them to create for themselves. The supply of mercenary forces and terror threats have created the demand for large-scale arms trading and targeted counter-strikes. In any other context this business model would seem absurd; a company as its own competitor. But SCORPIA is not an organization with an ideological stake. It has gladly provided weapons and personnel to both sides of a conflict, and charged accordingly for the ‘increased risk’ posed to its operatives.

At the time of publication, SCORPIA turns a profit that would see it on the cover of Forbes, or put to shame the GDP of many countries. If SCORPIA were to trade on the public market, their stock would be at a premium. Almost no business can claim higher return on investment, or more efficient operating procedures. These observations are not meant as a compliment to the private crime market, but a condemnation of everyone who has allowed SCORPIA to flourish in the world they irrevocably harmed.

What we must do is clear: hold our leaders responsible. As the world recovers from the devastating terror attacks ten years ago, it is intolerable that our governments continue to tolerate the influence of people such as Alex Rider.

**Author's Note:**

> Layout and style lovingly mimicked from The Economist, when possible. 
> 
> Credit for images goes to 'The Second Nuclear Age' by Paul Bracken for the cover. Blast door photograph attributed correctly in-text. Diagram on page two altered from 2007 image in The Economist titled 'Red October'. Image of Alex Rider depicts Otto Farrant, who will be playing him in the upcoming TV show. Final image taken from 'The Night Manager' miniseries. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed - all formatting issues are mine, and thank you for your patience.


End file.
